r/PMDD

What the fuck is the point of continuously taking my Yaz birth control and skipping bleeding when my period isn’t the issue? My period is the relief. This is a method that has never worked for me and I’m so tired of having the same things suggested to me by doctors. Do they want me to kill myself or what. Because if so, just say that. Where did this even come from? Is anyone even trying to understand us?!?!

Was recently told by yet another doctor that removing my ovaries and uterus are ‘extreme’. Riddle me the extremes when I’ve exhausted every single other option. Multiple times.

I’m going to riot.
I love you guys.

I was diagnosed with PMDD about six years ago, and have worked with a therapist, my PCP, a general psychologist and had a women's mental health specialist consult at MGH (they only deal with hormonal disorders). I don't get period anymore but I still have some breakthrough symptoms. However, I've vastly improved compared to when this started. Here's what's helped:

☆high dose SSRI - Celexa

☆hormonal BC, DAILY, stopped periods - norethindrone

☆magnesium

☆vitamin B6

☆cutting alcohol completely

☆regular exercise - sometimes this feels really hard during luteal. Light yoga or even a walk can still help, whatever is doable

☆tracking with a smart ring- i use ringconn because of their strict data privacy and find it so helpful to know exactly where i am in cycle. You can track on paper too but as an adhd girl this really helps me! If you have HSA/FSA funds you can buy with that

This is just my personal experience and obviously every person and body is different, but wanted to share some hope and ideas about what to discuss with your doctor if you're early in this journey. We need WAY more resources and information on this disorders and I wish I would have known about some of these things earlier. It shocks me when I talk to friends getting a diagnosis and their doctors haven't even brought up any possible ways to improve symptoms

Hi! I’m looking for any resources on supporting partners with pmdd. I’ve been with my partner for a little over a year and the pattern of my pmdd has had a slowly progressing impact on our dynamic and mutual feelings of security.

It feels like during my luteal phase everything we have built gets chipped away at by my hypersensitivity and it’s causing him to feel like he’s in trouble all the time or like he never knows what’s going to trigger a reaction out of me.

The rest of the month we have a strong dynamic but I feel I spend a lot of my energy rebuilding and convincing myself that I’m not going to ruin everything we have built.

This morning he told me that at this point he wants some real, credible resources for how he can better understand and support me during this time, as well as resources to help him feel better supported.

TYIA, TLDR: desperate for resources on supporting partners with PMDD

About 1–2 weeks before my period, I start experiencing intense anger, sadness, irritability, and depression. It feels completely out of proportion to what’s actually happening, and I become reactive to absolutely everything. I can be incredibly rude or hostile toward my partner, even when he hasn’t done anything wrong, and afterward I feel horrible about it.

It honestly feels like something takes over my body and I become a completely different person. I know that sounds dramatic, but that’s genuinely what it feels like.

During this time, I can spend days sobbing over things that happened years ago. Everything feels hopeless, my life loses its meaning, and I can become suicidal. Then my period comes, and eventually I feel like myself again.

This has affected my relationships so much. With my previous partner, things got so bad that he would sometimes leave the house for days until my period started. Now I’m terrified of putting my current partner through the same thing. He constantly asks me what he’s done wrong, and the awful part is that I often genuinely can’t explain it because I know, deep down, that my reaction isn't really about what he has done.

I’ve seen psychologists, but PMDD isn't really recognized or discussed where I live, so I’m struggling to find someone who understands what I’m experiencing.

I desperately want help. I don’t want to spend one or two weeks of every month feeling like I’m possessed by a demon, hurting the people I love, sobbing, and losing all hope. I want to be happy and feel like myself consistently.

For anyone who has experienced PMDD or something similar: how did you get help? What made a difference? And how did you explain this to your partner?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who live somewhere where PMDD isn’t widely recognized, because I feel completely lost trying to navigate this.

I really can't take it. Once again, I feel so unfairly unwell. Once again, I can't bring myself to talk to anyone. I can't expect anyone to treat me like a fragile flower every month. Even I don't have the patience to take care of myself.

So then we just lay here in loneliness, making everything worse. "I am unlovable, I am too much, no one cares, no one will care when I'm gone, why should I suffer alone"

What even are we SUPPOSED to do? Manage symptoms, take drugs to dull everything, use stabilisation and mindfulness techniques while our brains are screaming at us to just feel the emotions. All this so we can be functional and participate in the money machine. FUCK EVERYTHING.

I had a hysterectomy and oophorectomy 7 months ago. It almost cost me everything to achieve. Years of trauma that I will never completely recover from. It’s all gone now. Life happened; it will keep happening.

A few months after that, my PMDD came back. At first I couldn’t quite believe it. I put it down to trauma, being autistic. Then I started having cyclical cramps and I couldn’t ignore it any more. Sure enough, my blood levels are incongruous with surgical menopause. Nobody quite knows why. Our best guess is that a tiny clump of ovarian cells was left behind, and along the way, it vascularised and started producing its own hormones. A tiny cyclic storm.

This is just a best guess.
The rest is just dark, empty fear. What if, maybe, perhaps…

I’m 28. Most days I wake up and forget I’m not 18 anymore. I’ve lost a decade to fighting PMDD. Sometimes a voice comes into my head, telling me it’s all too late. That I’ve lost, it’s game over.

It isn’t. Not for me and not for you.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He is the person I think about whenever I feel that my life is going on without me. Despite those 27 years, he still managed to survive, beckon the end of Apartheid, become the President of South Africa, and get married for the third time (at 80!). There was life, a tremendous life, awaiting beyond his imprisonment.

Now, I am not Nelson Mandela and I am not imprisoned. I can’t possibly compare my situation to his.

What I can do (and I know many of you do, too) is feel a terrible loss of life — the gradual slipping away of my years, dropping off into the nothingness — and assume that I’ll die before I ever get free.

The truth is, we will either get free now or we will get free later. Eventually we will find a treatment that works for us (in my case, likely further surgery), or we will go into natural menopause and our PMDD will end (HRT! Always, always try HRT if you can!), or medical advancements will offer more effective treatments.

At the upper end, we may be 60 when we get free. I know how heavily that weighs on us. But 60 doesn’t mean it’s over. It just means it’s different.

The agonising truth is, our lives may never be what we planned. I think there’s a grieving process to that. The grieving process is important. We all have our treasured dreams cradled close to our hearts, clasped inside us like pearls in oysters, and it’s devastating to see those pearls dulling in shine. It’s devastating to wake up one day and see that somewhere, those pearls have disappeared.

It’s okay to grieve our pearls.

My mum is in her 60s. As a child, she was a piano prodigy, and she was set to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps by attending the Royal Schools of Music. Her own complex trauma and a sudden wrist injury meant that her dream was sadly never fulfilled. She later married my abusive dad and dedicated her life to caring for me.
Decades later, and she’s having the time of her life! She’s become an artist. She dances. She’s had help from a psychologist. And her fashion sense! You should see her fashion sense! She gets stopped in the street constantly because people can see it, they see somebody who’s free. She’s one of the coolest people I know — inside and out.

The Buddhist nun Pëma Chödrön wrote that “Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.”

(This is from her book When Things Fall Apart, by the way. I read it in the early days after my hysterectomy and it had a profound impact on me).

It’s easy to assume regrets are hidden keys dropped into storm drains. It’s more important to remember that they might not be. For example, I tried nearly every PMDD treatment except SSRIs. My PMDD is the 50% physical variety, and I was so angry that even with potential symptom reduction, I’d still face hormones that I’m allergic to (I have progesterone hypersensitivity). I decided to fight until I was free of PMDD altogether. I’ll never know if that was the right choice. Sometimes I’m convinced that if I’d just taken Prozac, I’d be fine. But I know I can’t guarantee that! i have a deep respect for my past self for surviving up until now. No matter what happens, I am grateful for my opportunity to keep fighting.

We may not see peace yet.
But take heart, lovely friends.
Peace is waiting for us.

TW for mentioning of Self harm and suicide ideation

Why do I get so hopeless and full of self hatred to the point of suicidal ideation and wanting to self harm EVERY MONTH.

It feels like a fucking joke that it just goes away the second I start bleeding. Why the fuuuuck did nature design us this way.

And even more so WHY DO PEOPLE CLAIM THEY RELATE when all they get is a little more irritateable and the urge to eat chocolate while watching their favourite show. WE ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT THE SAME. Stop downtalking my massive mental health struggles PLEASE

been thinking about this quote from the Backrooms movie. I feel like it perfectly describes trying to explain this disorder to people who don’t experience it.

I’ve tried a couple of SSRIs over the years, but have stopped taking them because of them lowering my heat tolerance. But now, I just drink nettle and spearmint tea from my mid-Luteal phase through my period. I also use some of the tools I’ve learned talk therapy and use marijuana for really low mental health days particularly during my late-Luteal phase.

Anyone else not necessarily using medication to navigate their symptoms?

EDIT: I realize now that many of us have different perceptions of “raw dogging,” which I understand as not using a prescribed, controlled medication to treat symptoms of a condition. Now after reading some comments, I believe this term may not have been the most accurate, universally-defined term to use. With that being said, I do understand the herbal medicine and CBT are both treatments. And this was written with true curiosity and not for advice. I genuinely like seeing what practices support different people! This regimen has been serving me well along with other practices, such as bodily awareness, cycle tracking, daily physical activity, etc. I truly appreciate everyone’s vulnerability!

I have now tried to see two psychiatrists to pursue luteal dosing on a low dose SSRI to treat my PMDD and have been aggressively dismissed by both. Both were women. It’s the craziest feeling having them look at you and insist SSRIS can only be taken daily. I’ve spent the past year researching this as a potentially effective treatment method and have read many times on PMDD websites & threads that certain SSRIS such as Prozac and Zoloft do NOT need to be taken daily in order to treat PMDD symptoms during luteal.

I went ahead and got prescribed 25mg Zoloft under the guise that I will be taking it daily. It would not have been prescribed otherwise. I’m so tired of feeling so desperate and having medical professionals look at me like I have 0 idea what I’m talking about. I don’t want to lie, I don’t want to feel judged, I don’t want to be dismissed or made to feel stupid. I’m 30 years old and have been battling this exact kind of judgement and dismissal in medical settings for nearly a decade now. I’m so hurt and ready to give up on trying to get any help for PMDD.

I also have CPTSD and ADHD but cannot get diagnosed no matter what I say. I’m dismissed on that front as well. It seems that psychiatrists are lacking in knowledge surrounding PMDD, CPTSD, and how ADHD symptoms show up for women. When I try to talk about PMDD & CPTSD they look at me like I’m speaking a different language.

I have no idea where to go from here I was just laid off and have no medical insurance. & I don’t have the financial ability to see any kind of specialist at this time for I will have to pay out of pocket. Am I doing something wrong? Is there something I’m missing? I seriously feel so crazy & want to feel seen for once in my life by a medical professional :(

Does anyone else feel a deep sense of existentialism during their luteal phase.

Hello! I was diagnosed with PMDD yesterday so everything is still pretty new and I’m still trying to process. I didnt know about PMDD when I went to the doctor to get checked but when I read about it after I was given the diagnosis it sounds like I check all the symptoms described. I felt a sense of relief knowing that there was actually something wrong and I was not just losing my mind. But I am still sort of in my mourning phase learning that this can go on until menopause, which is still 20 years from now.

My doctor recommended to go the birth control route for treatment. I am going to try out Yasmin. Does anyone else do the birth control treatment? How is that working for you? Or did it work for you at all? I’ve never taken birth control pills before so I wanna learn from personal experiences. Thank you!

First of all, I have a whole package - severe, debilitating ADHD, Autism, and pmdd on top. Found out about all these in the last 2-3 years (I’m 33).

I’ve been on different ssris for these 3 years, last one (Effexor) has been working well but making me completely flat emotionally - I reduced the dosage slightly with my prescriber’s supervision, which made me feel more like myself, but also brought back the PMDD hell.

I’m so, so tired of changing meds, going through adjustment periods, then seeing my other conditions getting affected, all this endless dance around my unfortunate brain chemistry.

Even if something works for a while, I know that PMDD and the associated depression will happen again. But this knowledge doesn’t make me more prepared, more accepting of it. I feel like it should. It feels so much worse instead - each episode gets so much heavier, and I get so much more exhausted.

Also I absolutely hate how lonely this thing is. I have friends and people who love me but I don’t talk to them about it because they naturally get used to it but I never do!! It’s so fresh each time and I feel like I need even more support … And needless to say, I’m chronically single because I’m very difficult to be with. But god how envious I am of my coupled friends. It’s pretty ironic that I need a consistent and loving presence so bad but my chances to find it are so ridiculously low.

I spent last week in bed. Today I made an effort to go to the kitchen to get water, and broke the glass while mixing electrolytes in. The glass is still there broken, the water is still there on the floor

Hi everyone,

For those of us who hybrid dose- what do you take daily, and then what do you add on to that during your luteal?

I take 200mg Zoloft daily. I’ve been at this dose for years now and it’s been a godsend for my overall mental health. I still really struggle during my luteal phase though, so my psychiatrist has suggested I start adding extra Zoloft during this time (aka hybrid dosing). I’ve started small- adding 25mgs for each day of luteal- but i think i need to go higher? I will ask my doctor of course, but i would love to hear from someone else who has been doing this.

I’ve searched this sub and have read through the wikis. I see some folks mention increasing their SSRI by 50% during luteal. I imagine i will have to do that (with my Dr’s approval) i’m just a little nervous since i am already at a “high” dose.

Thank you! I am wishing us all some relief and ease🙏🏻

Edit to add- i have read the rules i swear!! This is my third time trying to post this question!! Oy vey i hope it works this time😵‍💫

this is a slight rant/slight advice needed.

Recently given Fluoxetine for pmdd and the doctor had told me to take it continuously as opposed to the cyclical dosing as “by the time it leaves the body, you have to take it again” which i think is fair enough.

But based on the side effects (increased anxiety which is already a symptom for me during luteal phase, mania, brain zaps) im a bit scared of taking it especially with important life changes coming up. is it worth it? is it worth going through few weeks of hell? Like i don’t even know how to cope with the side effects especially with work and uni at the same time

I just hate that my brain is like this. I wish i could be normal.

a recent study in Australia showed that out of its participants with PMDD, 56% of them were misdiagnosed (Border & Miller, 2026). did you guys know that PMDD is also associated with higher odds of life ending attempts?

in my own personal experience, this diagnosis has felt like living with a stranger or my middle school bully in my head. im a mental health therapist and find it challenging to manage symptoms while giving my all to my beloved clients. do you feel like pmdd impacts your work?

Anybody else with these side effects? Wondering if it's related... I feel like I'm a Teenager again. Constantly irritated... raged... I don't recognize myself anymore. It helps with the acne and other symptoms though.

I want to smash my head against a wall. Day 20. That is all.